Posts Tagged ‘corporate political activities’

Yesterday, Royal Dutch Shell made headlines when it announced it would respond to shareholder demands for better consideration and disclosure of the company’s risks from climate change. The move was welcomed by shareholders and activists looking to see Shell better incorporate climate change and its impacts into its business model. Read More

Last year the CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy Karen Alderman Harbert had some trouble articulating the business group’s position on climate change. During a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Bob Menendez asked Ms. Harbert if the Chamber believed climate change was real and human-caused—yes or no. Read More

Five years ago next week the Supreme Court issued a decision that would soon have major impacts on our political system. In Citizens United v. FEC, the court ruled that spending limits violated free speech, opening the floodgates to vastly increased political spending by corporate interests. Read More

“Let me (be) very very clear, for us climate change is real and it’s a threat that we want to act on. We’re not aligning with skeptics.”

-Ben van Beurden, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell

Years ago, such a statement from the head of a major oil producer might have raised an eyebrow, but these days, most companies stick with the science if they choose to talk about climate change. Unfortunately, companies’ actions don’t necessarily align with their words. Read More

Today marks the 4th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. But the decision–which opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate political spending–isn’t just of interest to political and legal scholars. If you care about science-based policy, you also have a dog in this fight. Read More

Today we release our new report, Tricks of the Trade: How Companies Influence Climate Policy Through Business and Trade Associations. In the report we found that many companies choose not to be transparent about their affiliations with trade and business associations, even when the information is publicly available. In addition, we found that when companies did choose to disclose their trade group board seats, many claimed to disagree with their associations’ positions on climate change, raising questions about who trade groups are actually representing on climate policy. Read More

At least that’s my first takeaway from viewing the newlyreleasedreports from CDP (formerly, the Carbon Disclosure Project) that we’ve been waiting for. The international not-for-profit organization officially released this year’s data last night at the New York Stock Exchange. Every year, CDP collects climate reporting data it obtains by annually surveying companies worldwide, but this year, the organization asked companies something new. And the results (and lack thereof) are quite revealing. Read More